Having laid out my stall on the terrible use of data by Ofsted and the Department for Education, I’m finally able to focus on the positive and put forward an idea which I hope will take root. I really don’t care which political party takes it on. I just want someone responsible to take some responsibility for education.

The political approach to education in England is clearly a mess, and the current government's headlong rush into unknown territory is getting worse by the day. No one is quite sure what is likely to happen to curricula and assessment in schools in September this year, never mind next year or the year after. Schools which have been handed to private companies are adrift on oceans of uncertainty. OFSTED has lost any hold it might have had over its employees or its contractors, and I’ve shown that the accountability structure which has been developed over the 22 years since it was established has become a ridiculous, unfair and bullying disaster. Every man and his dog seems to be chipping in to try to shore up the biggest holes in the hull, but the good ship education is listing badly.

But things could be different. It doesn’t have to be this way.

A few years ago, I got to spend a few days finding out about education in France. I was part of a delegation of teachers and head teachers from the city where I live, and we were given the opportunity to visit schools, sit in on lessons, meet children, discuss similarities and differences between English and French schools with French teachers and to meet some of those responsible for providing public education in France.

The English delegation was curious to begin with. The more we began to find out about the system in France, the more bemused and confused we became. Inspections of teachers, not schools? No assemblies, sports teams or ‘school community’? No differentiation, little ICT, primary schools which were more like English secondaries? No head teachers? No league tables, competition between schools or public ‘accountability’?

The whole system of education in France is completely different to the system in England. Just about the only thing schools have in common is that they are called schools and they have teachers and children. Almost everything else is unlike our system, on every level, in every detail. It seemed like we’d visited an alternative universe, where nobody had ever heard of a Learning Objective, a WALT or a WILF, much less a ‘learning style,’ a plenary or a ‘level’.

The English delegation began to ask each other how the two countries compared internationally. Given that the English system - based on data, OFSTED, socialisation and school communities - is so utterly different to the French model, surely there must be clear differences. One had to better than the other. Surely?

When I returned to England, I had a look. I searched and searched to find out what had been researched and written. I looked at PISA and TIMMS, at international comparisons and indicators. I looked at books written by expat French writers living in England, and English writers living in France. I spoke to friends and acquaintances who had experience of each system. In the end, my research boiled down to this:

People spend about the same amount of time in full time education in both countries (16.4 Years of 'School Life Expectancy').

Economically, we are very similar, with similar levels of poverty and wealth (around mid thirties on the World Bank's GINI index).

There is no real difference in outcome between an English and a French education, despite the two having virtually nothing in common.

Let’s take a short trip around the world

I grew up abroad, and didn’t return to England until I was in my teens. The education systems to which I was subjected were influenced by English ideals, but there were significant differences. For example, I didn’t eat lunch at school and never had a half term. I had subject teachers in upper primary and spent endless lessons copying and regurgitating facts seated in rows ordered by results of the most recent test in each subject. Other countries do things differently, as the French example above demonstrates.

Here’s a bit more information about France. There are no standardised tests or public examinations in primary schools. None whatsoever.

But what of countries other than France? Are they more like England?

In Japan, the last national tests were way back in 2007, and even those were surveys which did not involve all schools. Teacher assessment is used, but there are no standard procedures dictated by politicians. Universities have admission examinations, but upper-secondary education is certified by individual schools, and there is no system for between school comparisons. None whatsoever.

Finland, which used to have school inspections, has not had an inspection system since the early 1990s. There are objectives which come from central government, and there are sample based evaluations of learning outcomes (which are not used to rank schools). The first public examinations are taken in the 9th year of schooling at age 16, and there are no national tests in primary schools. None whatsoever.

Germany has devolved education systems in each of its Länder, and has no centrally dictated education system. Children in primary only attend school in the morning, starting and finishing early in the day. At the end of primary school, children split into different types of secondary schools in a process which involves the children, their parents and their teachers, but no public assessments are undertaken or published. None whatsoever.

Most of the information above is taken from the excellent ‘Report of the NAHT Commission on Assessment.’ This was undertaken when the Department for Education announced a consultation into assessment in England last summer, of which more below.

In short, England has a ridiculously data-driven 'accountability' system compared to just about every other country you could mention. So we must be brilliant with all our testing and competition between schools, eh? International comparisons, beloved of English politicians and journalists, are disputed by many academics. That said, it is worth looking at what the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has found to see if it sheds any light. PISA ‘aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students’; not primary school children, by the way. Most countries let their children be children.

Ignoring the dubious findings for selected city states in China and other fast-changing areas of south-east Asia, most 'developed' countries are not that different, with scores centred around an average of just below 500 points on the PISA scale. For the countries I’ve mentioned above, the reported values for 2012 were as follows. Maths Reading France 495 505 Finland 519 524 United Kingdom 494 499 Germany 514 508 Japan 536 538 I’m not exactly sure what this tells you, other than that, whatever politicians, journalists and the chatterati think, there’s very little difference between these countries despite their vastly different systems of education. And our system of assessing and publishing results at aged 7, 11, 16 and 18, and inspecting schools based on dubious Not Even Wrong data doesn't seem to have made us any different.So how did England end up with our Data Driven Disaster?

The NAHT report mentioned above has a useful brief history of England’s national curriculum assessment and reporting. As many working in education will know, the state started to poke its nose into education in the 1970s. James Callaghan was the first politician to really suggest that schools should be held ‘accountable’ by politicians, and his generation were the first to really believe the Great Meritocracy Lie, which I'll come back to next week. The Education Reform Act of 1988 sank its teeth further into schools, resulting in levels, key stages, external tests for 7, 11 and 14 year olds, OFSTED and all manner of nonsense which is still having repercussions today. It’s worth reading the History section of the NAHT report to see how much assessment has chopped and changed, as politicians have tried to chase the chimera of ‘bad’ schools and teaching, ignoring the great big elephant in the room: The relative levels of poverty and ability in school communities which means that the well off and more able will always get better academic results, whatever the system. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic in its consequences for the educational experience of a generation of school children.

Nick Davies interviewed Kenneth Baker (above), the politician behind the 1988 Educational Reform Act. It’s worth quoting Davies' findings. “The most sweeping educational reforms this century, it transpires, (were) guesswork, personal whim and bare-knuckle politics. And that, in turn, is part of a wider and more alarming paradox: that the politics of education are built on foundations of ignorance. There are core questions which have never been answered. Sometimes this is because there is a shortage of hard information, how do children learn; what is the best age to begin schooling; should children sit exams at sixteen? () This vacuum of understanding frequently is filled by political ideology.” “Lord Baker may laugh, but it is striking how many of his reforms were rooted in whim. He says that when he took over from Sir Keith Joseph there was no grand plan.” Baker was simply told to, “go away for a month and come up with something. So he did.” The history of educational reform since Kenneth Baker’s tenure as Secretary of State in charge of education has been similarly whimsical. We have had sweeping changes from all three major parties, by politicians a varied as David Blunkett, Michael Gove and Nick Clegg. And all of their changes have been made on a whim, ignoring advice, evidence and outrage from those tasked with trying to nurture and educate children in their charge. Most recently, to name but two stupid politician-inspired idiocies, we have had a ridiculous 'consultation' on reforming assessment and accountability in schools and an entirely new national curriculum written and imposed in the blink of an eye. Both consultations were met with howls of anguish by anyone who knows anything about education. Both resulted in politicians pushing through whimsical change, laughing as they did so.It’s time to stop this stupidity

In 1946, the UK government nationalised the Bank of England. Founded in 1694, it had worked as the English Government’s banker for two and a half centuries. The government had run out of money, and it handed over various powers to an independent company to get it out of the mess it was in. The Bank prospered and evolved into a modern central bank. Following the shock of the second world war, with the government running out of money again, the bank was taken into public ownership. As the world of finance changed in the late 20th century, and the global economy began to get much more complex, politicians couldn’t resist meddling in the affairs of the bank, with inevitable results.Huge amounts of damage was being inflicted by the politicisation of interest rates, for example. This resulted in the dangerous situation whereby the economy was being managed to benefit political parties rather than the long term interests of the country. When elections were approaching, politicians couldn’t resist the temptation to cut interest rates, which created cycles of boom and bust, huge levels of unemployment and underlying turmoil in the economy. Of course, changes in the management of the economy don’t have immediate effects, and, just like in education, it takes some time for unintended consequences to reveal themselves. There are long lags between changes and their outcomes. And as Vince Cable noted in his maiden speech in parliament, “The reason why it is important for central banks not to suffer day to day political intervention is that it is difficult for such intervention to be successful, because of the long lags in economic policy.” You can see where I’m going here. The Bank of England was handed back its independence in 1998 and interest rates are no longer altered at the whim of politicians. The financial crisis in which we have been engulfed for the past ten years would have been infinitely worse had an independent body not been taking a longer view of the economic development of the country.

We need a body which can do the same for education. If the Bank of England can weather the worst financial storm in living memory by finding, appointing and holding to account a group of experts in their field, children's education deserves the same care and attention. It is time to remove what happens in schools from the hands of here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians and give it to responsible adults with an eye on the long term.I don’t care how its done, just do it The Bank of England elects nine people to its Monetary Policy Committee. They meet once a month. In between, they are sent briefings, meet with civil servants, conduct their own research and attend hearing of parliamentary committees. Their deliberations are on record, and they are held accountable for their actions. I propose an Education Policy Committee to oversee Education in England. It just needs nine sensible people to do the job. Nine professionals who could put the interests of children and the country as a whole first. In the same way that nine people oversee the monetary policy of the country. Education is too important to left to the whims of amateurs who have no idea what they are doing. I don't care how it's done, just do it.Christopher Cook's FT blogs: http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2012/02/22/social-mobility-and-schools/ Information on European Education Systems: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydiceFinland: http://europa.eu/epic/countries/finland/index_en.htmPoverty around the World: http://www.globalissues.org/article/4/poverty-around-the-world#InequalityinIndustrializedNationsMonetary Policy Committee: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy

Excellent critique of the low thresholds of evidence and thought required before governments ring hugely disruptive changes through the system. However, I think the proposed solution is equally problematic.

A committee of experts putting "the interests of children...first" implies that children are a coherent body with a single set of interests. But our education system ranks children with the effect (if not the intention) that children from middle class homes are awarded higher status than those from poor ones. Would a committee of experts who benefited from this unjust system be motivated to change it?

Education is a political issue. The fact that current and former politicians have proven inept at improving it doesn't justify denying future ones the chance.

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Icing on the Cake

7/4/2014 03:28:26 pm

Hi Ed, and thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my post. I really appreciate your comments.

A couple of points, however. As I said above, I suggest the group of responsible adults put the interests of children and the country first; I didn't suggest that this group be drawn exclusively trom the priviledged ("who had benefited from this unjust system")! And 'the interests of children' *would* be interpreted as just that by a group of nine people I'd expect on an EPC...

And yes, education is a political issue, in as much as political decisions have to be made about it, but that doesn't mean that it should be handed to one person or one political party as it currently is in England. We don't hand political decisions on interest rates over in this way any more, and we could make the same exception for education...

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Chemistrypoet

7/4/2014 01:20:30 pm

I agree that a more thought through approach to education would be a very good thing. I also agree that some of the underlying current assumptions about what education is for might easily not be correct. But, I wonder if it is really possible to take politics out of education? Is there consensus in other countries, and truly no involvement from politicians (politicians may not be setting interest rates in the UK but they are certainly still involved in national and international economics)? My assumption is that the raft of changes made in the UK in the 80's was as a result of a general dissatisfaction with how things were in state schools at the time. We want a means to find the best approaches, and a means to change direction if things look as if they are going astray......

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Icing on the Cake

7/4/2014 03:38:16 pm

Thanks for reading and commenting, CP; good to know that you are keeping me on my toes. See my comments to Ed on politics & education - just because we haven't of late doesn't mean we shouldn't put a layer between frontline politics and the long term needs of the country.

I'll follow up next week on how we how into this daft mess, but suffice to say that setting up Strawmen is a speciality of politicians, and their educational Strawman worked so well, very people today notice that it is exactly that (if they ever did to start with!).

I suggested a way of doing this a while back. It generally garners support. Funny that it's still not happened though, eh! http://lauramcinerney.com/2012/06/17/a-letter-to-future-education-ministers-could-curriculum-review-look-like-this/

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icing on the Cake

14/5/2014 05:16:43 am

Great minds clearly think alike, Laura! I hadn't read your piece when i wrote this, but it does seem that there is support for a non-partisan approach to developing policy on education. As you observe, there's no concensus yet but we can always hope, and lobby for change inthe meantime...

Besides we have demonstrated with the Computer Baseline testing project that we can in principle provide international participative testing that enables individual schools to determine really use information for improvement at much lower cost than PISA.

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Viv Coy

30/6/2015 03:13:31 am

"There are core questions which have never been answered."
I realise that I'm coming late to this blogpost, but as usual your words have chimed with me.
I can see how difficult it must be for a young(er) teacher to imagine a primary education system without targets, tests and Ofsted - but I remember it well! I spent my first 10 yrs as a teacher in England in such a system. What I taught and how I taught it was totally in my own hands. The only limits were my own knowledge, creativity and the available resources (which in Lincolnshire were very few!). My headteacher, at the time, was collaborative, supportive and encouraging - often teaching his own class - and keen to make primary school a valuable and exciting experience for all our pupils.
My main concerns were those 'core questions': how do children learn? what's the best way to teach this idea/concept? what should children learn next? My other concerns related to the realisation that other teachers did not necessarily work in the same way as I did or know their pupils as well as I did. The arrival of the National Curriculum brought me mixed feelings - I would be losing my freedom but ALL pupils would be provided with an entitlement to learning content, which had not existed previously, and which surely had to be a good thing, didn't it? Of course, NC also eventually brought testing too - the impact of which I have discussed elsewhere.
Jump forward ten years and Kenneth Baker's qualms about political interference in education moved on again - with the inception of the Literacy & Numeracy Strategies. Now it wasn't just 'what' we taught, but 'how'! To be honest, I was really doubtful initially, but I couldn't fail to be impressed by the quality of the progression laid out in the Framework tomes. If nothing else, they articulated just how complex and monumental the learning journey is. At the time I felt I could have written the maths document myself - I loved it! Meanwhile the literacy framework was the reference document I wished I'd had for the previous 20 years. The problem, of course, was how to mediate their enormity and complexity to the wider teaching force.
I think both these 'strategies' were actually a force for good, based, as they were, on the best educational research. Unfortunately they were enmeshed within the targets, testing & Ofsted monoliths that had developed alongside them.
Just think where we could have been 15 years on without that triad.

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Andrew Hampton

7/8/2016 11:18:38 am

Fabulous piece, thank you. Completely agree. I come from the fee charging sector and I know that implies all sorts of things, but I just wanted to say I agree and that the Independent Schools Council lobbied for education to be taken out of the political arena for many years too.

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Me?
I work in primary education and have done for ten years. I also have children
in primary school. I love teaching, but I think that school is a thin layer of icing on top of a very big cake, and that the misunderstanding of test scores is killing the love of teaching and learning.